Those who can, can’t always teach. When you’ve studied a skill for years, it can be hard to break down your steps and remember what new learners don’t know. Which is how you end up writing instructions like the above, which Reddit user kdesh titled “Step 1. Threaten the coconut with a machete” in a post on the subreddit /r/restofthefuckingowl.

As with so much Reddit humor, there’s a lesson to draw from these jokes: When you’re giving instructions, try to break them down into as many steps as possible, and test them on amateurs.

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Conversely, when working with vague instructions, try to forge your own way. As Redditor phpdevster noted about How to Draw Anything, some instructions are vague on purpose: “You only learn by doing, which is the strategy these books attempt to follow.”